Establishing the Infection Business Continuity Plan (BCP) based on experiences from the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

Shinkomonji Hospital is a regional core acute care hospital located in Moji-ku, Kitakyushu City, Japan. In March 2020, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infections began with a single hospitalized patient, resulting in an outbreak affecting 20 patients. This was the first case of a confirmed hospital cluster in Fukuoka Prefecture and led to a one-month total shutdown of medical services. Our hospital was in a state of uncertainty and had a difficult time dealing with the situation because we did not have any experience with clusters and a total shutdown of medical services, nor any business continuity plan (BCP) to deal with infectious diseases. Our experience dealing with category II infectious disease from the resumption of medical services until May 2023 was a battle against the spread of COVID-19, and we were required to take appropriate measures against COVID-19 despite not being a designated infectious disease hospital. Based on our experience with COVID-19 in the absence of an appropriate BCP, we established the first edition of a BCP for infectious diseases in July 2022 to ensure that we apply lessons learned from our experience to emerging infectious diseases that may occur in the future. We discuss the development of the BCP and our experience with COVID-19.